Boston Public Library exhibit celebrates Edgar Allen Poe

Monday

Jan 25, 2010 at 12:01 AMJan 25, 2010 at 11:20 AM

Celebrating the 201th anniversary of Poe’s birth on Jan. 19, 1809, the Boston Public Library exhibit “The Raven in the Frog Pond” explores his genealogy, writing and the bitter literary feud that turned his hometown against him.

Chris Bergeron

Edgar Allan Poe is as much a native Bostonian as Leonard Nimoy, Aerosmith and JFK.

Celebrating the 201th anniversary of Poe’s birth on Jan. 19, 1809, the Boston Public Library exhibit “The Raven in the Frog Pond” explores his genealogy, writing and the bitter literary feud that turned his hometown against him.

Paul Lewis, a professor of English at Boston College, organized the exhibit, combining in-depth research, insights into Poe’s legacy and fascination with the “snarky” literary gossip of his day.

“I started out thinking what everyone thought: Poe was just another Southern writer. He hated Boston. But I discovered that wasn’t true,” said the Newton resident.

Putting the exhibit together, Lewis said he was “stunned” by the breadth of the library’s collection of material related to Poe.

A specialist in American literature before the Civil War, humor and gothic fiction, he listed some of the exhibit’s artifacts. “There’s 21 of his letters, scores of letters to him, manuscripts, notes about projects, an amazing collection of antebellum first editions and Poe’s reviews of (Nathaniel) Hawthorne, (Margaret) Fuller and (Henry Wadsworth) Longfellow,” said Lewis.

Subtitled “Edgar Allan Poe and the City of Boston,” it is on display in the BPL’s McKim Building in the third floor Cheverus Room through March 31.

The exhibit’s title comes from Poe’s venomous nickname of “Frogpondians” for Bostonians and writers he considered didactic like Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

After a poorly received public appearance, Poe wrote to a friend, “They are getting worse and worse and pretend not to be aware there are lively people outside of Boston. The worst and most disgusting part of the matter is that Bostonians are really, as a race, far inferior in point of anything beyond mere talent. ... They are decidedly the most servile imitators of the English it is possible to conceive.”

If that wasn’t enough, Poe said of Boston: “Their hotels are bad. Their pumpkin pies are delicious. Their poetry is not so good.”

He probably would’ve trashed Bill Belichick for calling a run on fourth-and-one against the Colts.

Lewis said Poe was born at 62 Carver St. to parents who soon left Boston to work as traveling actors. Both died before his third birthday.

He said Poe’s birthplace was demolished in the 1960s to make room for the State Transportation Building. “It was criminally stupid,” said Lewis. “They could have turned it into a little museum.”

Considering Poe’s literary achievement, he considers it troubling Boston never formally honored him until last April when it renamed the corner of Charles and Boylston streets, across from the Common and not far from his birthplace, as Poe Square.

Lewis expressed hope visitors to the exhibit will take time to discover a sensitive but tormented artist who cared deeply for his friends and literature.

“The real story about the adult Poe is that he was so poor he often didn’t know where his next meal was coming from. Yet he was still very productive. He’s been credited with inventing the detective story and science fiction. I think he was extremely influential for highbrow fiction and pop culture,” he said.

THE RAVEN IN THE FROG POND: EDGAR ALLAN POE AND THE CITY OF BOSTON Through March 31 at the Boston Public Library, 700 Boylston St., Boston. 617-536-5400, www.bpl.org.